Development: When does the Game become "Fun"?
polycounter lvl 18
Its a simple yet very complex question.
From your personal experience, when is the point during development where the game being created goes from a series of assets and linked game mechanics to being "fun" to play?
Now, to make it even harder....
Is there any ratio if the game being created is fun early on (blocked in assets and unfinished core game mechanics), versus late in development (finalized artistic implementation or game mechanic), corresponds to commercial success?
From your personal experience, when is the point during development where the game being created goes from a series of assets and linked game mechanics to being "fun" to play?
Now, to make it even harder....
Is there any ratio if the game being created is fun early on (blocked in assets and unfinished core game mechanics), versus late in development (finalized artistic implementation or game mechanic), corresponds to commercial success?
Replies
Always for uni students i stress the most important thing is getting the gameloop finished, and then making it fun, it doesn't matter if the first art assets are bad.
No. Commercial success is more dependent on marketing and luck.
Partly dude, that luck element can be made less important from understanding the market.
We had a pretty damn good run making hits when i was at half brick. Not sure how much that was luck Fruitninja>Monsterdash>JetpackJoyride.
The biggest decider by far was gameplay and art style.
Auh, but when is a prototype no longer a prototype?
Once the game reaches the fun level at that prototype stage. That particular point when it all came together enough to be "fun". When is it (inside the prototype stage)? When does the magic most often happen for you?
But lets say we take it up to something like lets say an rts, where prototyping only gets you so far. In that case you should be prototyping on the small scale, making certain elements fun, as well as the macro scale.
Do you know much about feedback loops?
Also this blog is a great read.
http://www.lostgarden.com/
With that being said, for most cases, typically a game starts being fun when everything comes together as a whole, which is typically a few months before shipping believe it or not. Alpha builds are usually fun to play as well.
Before that... it can be almost a chore having to play your own game, since you're staring at it every day. But again... very relative!
Best example of this is Max Payne 3. Just shooting people is a lot of fun, that is the core-mechanic and it's what you do 90% of the game. It's also evolving the with your skill of the game. At the start of Max Payne 3 you might have just shot people in the face by randomly running around and jumping but later on maybe you make use of the physics of the game and tackle the heavy armored guy with a jumpdive while you take out the easier guys and then when the heavy is on the floor you execute him by planting a bullet in his skull. That's just adding to the already FUN core-mechanic.
The real problem is when you blend genres, where you need to balance several core-mechanics to suit the both main genres. Like RPG/Shooting like Borderlands. Where the feedback you get from the enemies isn't always satisfying. You just see numbers or a health-bar drop.
If you have average shooting gameplay but later on in the game you get something that makes it more fun, you'll still have the issue where the first part of the game isn't as fun as the second part etc.
So for me, the sweet spot of FUN in game development is when you nail the core-mechanics and it makes the game super fun to play. That's why I feel like it's always very important to ask the whole team if they feel that the game is fun enough to play with just the core-mechanics in.
However, whenever you see your stuff coming to life in a game, your concept not just being a static image in your head, that's awesome.
I think a more relevant question although maybe more vague is "Is it giving the type of experience we want." Something like Journey where there is totally a layer of simple "fun", in just the way you can move around/jump/surf etc, but there is also a whole other layer with the cooperation of this unnamed stranger, that i think is much more important. They had a tonne of trouble trying to get people to work together at That Game Company. Some things like this can take a super long time to get right, and when you do finally get them right, you wont be playing it, you'll be watching someone else play it. The most important thing I think, is that everyone on the team is on the same page as to what you're all trying to make. If you took everyone on the team and interviewed them in a room separately the accounts of what kind of game the're making should be similar. If there not, then you have some serious creative direction/communication problems.
Like ChrisRadsby said though, the fun definitely comes and goes, someone or some team implements something new and you use it for the first time and your like "hey! that's super fun!" but after the 1000 time it's no longer fun. When your super close to a game all you can see is the warts, it's really hard to step back and see the good anymore, "everything sucks and it all needs to be better!"
that's prob the longest post iv ever made, rant over.
That is probably going to be one of the greatest quotes in the history of game development!
Good on you for writing that Muzz, because at the end of the day. Fun is really the question we should all be holding to the games we create as developers. (artists included)
And it felt amazing.
I don't get all these graphic whores, what's the point of having an amazing looking game if the story is utterly gash? Play for 5 mins - join the bargain bin pile.
Been getting a lot more into stylised games and mobile stuff, even thinking about trading in me Xbox for a Wii U. Try out Bitrip Runner 2, that game is a feckin audio and design masterpiece!
In my experience...yes.
I'm pretty sure if you could poll everyone who worked on any game, there would be some correlation between 'finding the fun' early on in the project and commercial success, but there would also be plenty of exceptions to this rule.
One thing I find interesting is 'games' getting away from always being about fun. As others have mentioned, some games can be interesting although they aren't exceptionally fun. I think that as games strive for more experiences other than 'pure fun', it will be harder for those games to determine if they will be successful early on in the project. If your goal is to try and make people think about a political issue, for example, you may not know if you are going to succeed at that goal early on, while prototyping game mechanics with simple proxy assets.
Chasing fun is more straightforward than a lot of goals, and if Fun is the goal of the game, then having core mechanics that many people find fun, while early on in pre-production, is a very good indicator that the game has potential.